Playtex was founded in 1932 as the International Latex Corporation by Russian immigrant Abram Nathaniel Spanel, an industrialist, inventor and philanthropist who held over 2,000 patents. Spanel’s original factory in Rochester, New York produced ladies’ swim caps and latex gloves. Spanel is said to have maintained living quarters in the original building and would often walk the factory floor in the evening while wearing his bathrobe. His employees were among the earlier to have air-conditioning and paid life and health insurance. The New York factory was later destroyed by fire. Spanel moved his operations to Dover, Delaware in 1939 where they remain to this day.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia